As we said good bye to the cheaper part of our trip through more rural Southeast Asia, we also took our final AirAsia flight. Instead of passing out just plain salted peanuts we got peanuts covered in rice balls. Pretty funny so I had to take a picture especially since they were delicious.
Talk about sticker shock. Singapore is the total opposite of trying to ease back into the American dollar. Everything here is really expensive. From the hotels to the simplest meal and even a mani/pedi! Upon landing we took a cab over to the Sheraton Singapore where I reluctantly made a reservation using cash and points. Usually I like to use my Starwood points for aspirational redemptions but in this case it just didn't make sense to buy a hotel room. Even plain two star hotel rooms were over $200 usd per night. Cash and points it is. After checking in we got ready and headed out to dinner. I spent about twenty minutes trying to find a place online that wasn't $100+ per person. Finally found a place but when the concierge called it was closed, boo. He recommended another spot that was supposed to be relatively inexpensive, I guess it was for Singapore but it still came out to about $120 for two entrees and two glasses of wine. The place was super casual inside, the equivalent of like a California Pizza Kitchen. Seriously? Guess we aren't in Southeast Asia anymore...
After dinner we attempted to find the marina bay sands complex to go get a drink at the rooftop bar but got lost in all of the underground malls and walkways. After 45 minutes of walking we realized we were basically where we started and decided to cab back to the hotel.
The next morning Kirstin and I parted ways to explore separate parts of the city. I headed to the Arabic Quarter to indulge in some hummus. The area was very cute and had a lot of old buildings but maybe that was just the facade on the outside of modern buildings?
After my $40 hummus lunch (seriously) I walked over to the famous Bugis street. Inside were stalls and stalls of food as well as cheap clothes and nick nacks.
I ended up buying a few pairs of earrings as presents and walked around the crowded stalls watching all the people. Locals and tourists alike were haggling away. Love it.
My favorite shop of the day had a cute girl named Kandy who didn't speak a lot of English which is surprising because our hotel concierge said that English is the national language in Singapore. The whole town is interesting in that it's a smorgasbord of languages and cultures. Even though English is the national language, many speak mandarin and other languages. Anyways, Kandy appeared to be a few years younger then me. I liked the dress she was wearing and it turns out they had it in the store. A lot of the stores in Bugis center don't allow you to try on any of the clothes even over your own but Kandy allowed me to do it. I picked out her dress in black but she insisted I try on the same color as hers and that we take a photo for Facebook. She kept saying we should be Facebook friends and I should tag her. She didn't need to twist me arm on that one. Check out the photo of us in the matching dresses.
I continued to walk around in the area and headed back to the hotel to freshen up and meet Kirstin for dinner. We ended up going to Clark Quey for dinner. It looks just like universal city walk and clearly geared towards tourists. We walked around there and took some photos by the river and head back to pack our bags.
The next morning we walked up and down the famous Orchard Road and walked through a few of the enormous malls. After a few failed attempts I was finally able to find a decently priced manicure/pedicure place and indulged in some pampering. We then grabbed our bags and headed to the airport for our red eye to Sydney to connect to Melbourne! Time to pack up those flip flops and shorts because winter here we come!
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